Cold Steel Pocket Bushman Survival Knife Review

Author Rating | Comments Disabled | Jan 5th 09'

At 6" closed and 10.5" open the Pocket Bushman by Cold Steel is a supersized folder. One of things that really impressed me right off the bat was that it came very sharp right out of the box. This knife is advertised to handle all kinds of jobs and to take one hell of a beating, Cold Steel has said that the Pocket Bushman is practically bulletproof.

The blade is constructed of Krupp 4116 stainless steel and comes very sharp right out of the box, this blade really maintains a good edge. I've taken my Pocket Bushman into the wilderness quite a few times and it stayed sharp even after some serious abuse.

The locking mechanism on this knife is very interesting. The Ram Safe lock design provides one of the most secure locks I've ever seen, its rock tight. To close the blade you need to release the lock by pulling down on the lanyard which slides the locking bar open, you can then pull out the blade. This knife definitely takes some effort to close, even with two hands but I have noticed that as you break it in the motion becomes smoother.

The handle on this knife is quite interesting, especially in the way it works together with the Ram Safe locking mechanism. It is created from 1 piece of folded 420 stainless steel and has a good looking bead blasted finish.

UPDATE: The Cold Steel Pocket Bushman can't take abuse as claimed by Cold Steel. Watch as this knife breaks into pieces during an abuse test:

The Pocket Bushmans design flaws and vunerabilities have been exposed and brought to light. Big thanks to nutnfancy for pointing and sharing these problems. I personally never had any problems with the quality of my PB even after some significantly abusive use. I never tried batoning my knife, this may be why I never had a problem.
A quick search on Google reveals many other owners of this knife are having similar problems.

Buyer beware:It is not recommend to buy this knife until Cold Steel works out the kinks. Design flaws make it prone to failure. If you already own this knife don't use it for batoning or other heavily abusive tasks.